Gelap Pekat

Guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt of Swedish progressive metallers OPETH has issued the following update:

"Trainwreck!

"Yes, what that headline means is basically 'code' for fucking up during a show, which is what happened to us yesterday at the Summer Breeze festival [in Dinkelsbühl, Germany].

"I guess we'll be able to laugh about this in a few years. Or maybe not. Horrible and embarrassing it was, I tell you.

"Everything was perfect, set for a fantastic show. We're headlining the whole event and right before we went on stage we're pumped. Really! Crowd was screaming, going crazy, and as the intro started running....yes, magic in the air!

"Walking on stage, I was blown away by the amount of people there. It looked as if the every people at the fest was there to see us. Amazing! Very powerful sight indeed.

"Then as we go into 'Heir Apparent', I notice the following:

1: My stage sound is horrible,
2: Why can't I hear Fredrik [Åkesson, guitar] and
3: What the fuck!? 

"I start nodding to our monitor guy to get Fredrik's guitar up. Then I kinda glance over to Fred to see what's up. Now, I see our guitar tech running around like a monkey around Fred's amp. It's fucked up. His guitar is not even there. It's dead silent! Fuck! Normally I start fast-forwarding the song in my head to see if he has any breaks on his own...stuff I might have to play instead, while also trying to play good and remember the lyrics. Fuck...Yes, there's a part he plays on his own! Gahhhh! For some reason, his guitar kicks in for that part (which is clean guitar) and then cuts out again as the distortion comes back on. Fuck!

"The whole song is done with only my guitar and by now we've lost the plot. I virtually wanna walk off stage. But we hang in there. Unfortunately....

"Some time before 'Ghost', we play an impromtu version of 'Soldier Of Fortune', only that there's no guitars (since we have the open tuning guitars on us), there's no bass (Mendez forgot the song) and overall it's... not... good! There's also some strange funk jam between Mendez and Axe [drums] going on which is absolutely horrible since they can't hear each other at all. Sounds like they're playing a 'groove' on their own. But... it doesn't groove.

"I believe there was a desperate drum stick dropping drum solo somewhere as well.

"Next song, 'Ghost Of Perdition', is done with some fucking shit sound the managed to get through Fred's amp and the song sounds horrrible and loose from start to finish. Shit. Fuck, Cunt. Fuck!

"After this abomination of a version, Fred leans over and says, 'Talk some shit, I'll be up and running properly soon.' So I talk some shit, then goes into a half-assed version of 'Harvest', asking the crowd to sing. Now, all of a sudden we're faced with the following: No-one's singing. Couldn't they hear me? They don't know the words? They wanna see me sweat? So it's basically a (horrible) instrumental version of the song which kinda falls apart after a verse and a chorus, to little or no applause. I might add. Gulp! I'm not sure whether the 30,000 people out there hates us by now or what. I just wanna get done and go home! Haha!

"To be honest, round about now we start gluing things back together and the remaining part of the set goes back to 'normal,' more or less, only that I guess our faces look disillusioned and 'sad,' haha! 

"Anyways, the crowd slowly gets back into it and by the end it's....nice, I guess.

"We had people coming up to us and say it was great, fantastic. I've no idea but it's the single most embarrassing show we've done with this lineup so far. We always 'deliver,' but this time technical problems had us looking like wankers. So basically we just wanna say sorry to the fans who saw us there expecting (and rightfully so) a professional show. It wasn't, but as I said, maybe we'll laugh about it in....200 years.

"The town/village where we had our hotel was absolutely stunning, by the way. Dinkelsbühl was the name of that town and I suggest you visit. Beautiful!

"Anyways, we just got back home. The cabdriver who drove us was drunk and probably had the swine flu. 

"Anyways, we'll crawl back under the rocks to lick our wounds, so hopefully we'll be back on form for the next show which is on Thursday...in Belgium I believe. Mussels and Duvel, here we come!

"Take care my friends and wipe that smirk off yer faces, will ya? I know you think the above was funny..."